Let's pick up where we left off, shall we? We were perusing hot men for taking the roles of the heros in the I-Team series in our little game of I-Team Casting Couch.

Rita suggested Eduardo Verastegui for Julian. I told her that my tongue got stuck to my computer screen when I opened her email and saw his photos.

So here he is, both above an below. What do you all think?

Rita suggested Johnny Messner (below) for Marc Hunter.

He has the eagle tattoo already, doesn't he? Any thoughts?

Last night it dawned on me that Henry Cavill, the actor who plays Charles Brandon on the Tudors, might make a great Reece or a Marc Hunter. Brad Pitt was suggested for Reece as well. We all know who Brad is, so I haven't posted a photo of him.

Bo has made a ton of suggestions, not only for heroes but also for heroines. (WTG, Bo!) I'll try to get to those soon. I must eat lunch and then write a bit!

I am home again! We got about 18 inches of snow total. I spent last night in a hotel, then got up and had to unbury my car for the second time. I went in to the office for while even thought it's my day off — it's our busies time of the year — and then drove home on a slushy highway. It's really warm today, so the sidewalks that have been shoveled and the roads that would plowed are all but dry. Where they weren't plowed -- well, some fun, rutty driving. (I actually do find that fun.)

So, thanks to Sue Z, I have a new game I want to play with you all. I'm calling it "I-Team Casting Couch." Let me explain.

Let's imagine that the I-Team series was made into an ongoing TV series where every week featured a new I-Team adventure with the characters from my books. Each book would probably play out over a period of weeks, and there were be overlapping story lines and probably lots of stuff that was never in the books at all. (Hey, it's Hollywood, right?)

Now, let's imagine that you are the casting director. It's your job to find actors for all the roles. Here's who you need to cast:

Then there are a host of very secondary characters: the bad guys from the books, Alexi Burien, miscellaneous senators, Syko & Gang, the good and bad cops at Denver PD, assorted prison guards and shower hawks, Mr. & Mrs. Rawlings, Mrs. Charteris, & etc.

Clearly, the most important roles to cast are the leads I've listed. For the sake of simplicity, we'll leave Gabe Rossiter, the hero from Naked Edge, out because his story isn't out yet. That still leaves a lot of roles to cast.

So your assignment, should you opt to play, is to find stars for the roles of these characters. We don't need big names; we need talent — and people who match the descriptions of the characters and have their intensity. We can use contact lenses for eye color, if necessary, and we can dye people's hair if we must. But let's get as close as we can.

In your posts, list the people you'd cast. You don't have to cast everyone to make suggestions. If you've found the perfect Julian, you can just post him. We'll keep working on it till we get it right. There will be prizes along the way — book plates, book marks, signed I-Team books.

Let's see what we end up with!

UPDATE...

Okay, we have some suggestions coming in:

Clive Owen as Julian Darcangelo.

Nathan Kamp as Marc Hunter

Italian hottie Raffaello Balzo as Julian Darcangelo

Antonio Banderas as Julian Darcangelo. (I had always kind of envisioned him as Joaquin.)

Collin Farrell as Marc Hunter.

These ideas are from Sue Z, Evil Libby and moi. They should help get you started.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Ah, what a stressful job -- having to stare at handsome guys. Casting TV shows sure is hard work! ;-)

This is the view right now from my office window at the newspaper. See the tree? Neither do I.

After weeks of temps in the 70s, Colorado's mountains and Front Range have been hit with a monster snowstorm that is dumping at least 2 inches an hour and has been doing so since last night.

The drive from home to work — normally a 45-minute trip — lasted much of the morning, but I felt lucky compared to the people who had gone off the highway and now sit nose-first in snowbanks. My little car handled the drive pretty well, apart from the fact that in places the snow was so deep that it scraped the bottom of the vehicle. I came close to losing control a couple of times, but — thank goodness! — made it safely.

I have a hotel room reserved for tonight, where I shall hang out and write.

Schools are closed — it takes something of this magnitude to get a snow day in Colorado — and most highways are going to close this afternoon.

I wish I were home by my fireplace instead of stuck in an office! But staying in a hotel is always kind of fun. By tomorrow afternoon, I hope to have made it safely home again to snuggle in front of a fire and write.